Primo Levi

“I immersed myself in The Periodic Tablegladly and gratefully. There is nothing superfluous here, everything this book contains is essential. It is wonderful pure, and beautifully translated…I was deeply impressed.”

"One of the questions I continue to hear involves the roles and responsibilities of the Dean in contrast to that of the new Executive Vice Dean. Underlying the question, there appears to be a concern that the Medical School deserves the attention of a full-time Dean." Frank Cerra

[That would be yes...]

__________

BE IT RESOLVED: That the University Senate of the University of Minnesota disapproves the Provost’s plan to dissolve the Graduate School as announced in the Feb. 9. 2009 memorandum;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the University Senate demands that any proposal to dissolve or otherwise to restructure the Graduate School comply with the University of Minnesota Policy on Reorganization.

[from motion passed by U of M Faculty Senate, 30 April 2009]

_______________________

It is widely recognized that the manner in which the plan to reorganize the Graduate School was decided violated all the norms of wide-spread consultation and faculty involvement in major decisions in the University.

The precedent is alarming if it portends the future of the University as a highly centralized bureaucratic decision-making apparatus that excludes the faculty from any meaningful participation.

__

Finally, an explanation for why the president [OurCEO] of the University of Minnesota...

In an e-mail obtained by The Minnesota Daily, University spokesman Dan Wolter encouraged faculty to consult with the University News Service before commenting on potential cuts.“Should you have something you’d like to share with [The Minnesota Daily] at this point, I’d urge you to consult with me or your News Service representative before responding,” Wolter said in the e-mail.“Also, if you need someone to tell them you’re declining comment, we’re happy to do that.”

_A letter signed by 18 current and former University of Minnesota Regents professors will not be enough to halt the reconstruction [sic] of the Graduate School, despite the professors’ specific request to postpone the measure.

“There was no prior consultation with faculty,” the letter states. “Only the collegiate deans — who report directly to the senior vice presidents and depend on them for their budgets — had any advance notice that this was taking place. None of the senior administrators — not even the dean — had any advance warning.” Minnesota Daily

___...to go ahead and wipe out the grad school without consulting the community — it’s really shocking,” said Kristi Kremers, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly at Minnesota. ___"I think we need a moratorium on "US News & World Report" rankings," he wrote. "We need to set aside these childish things.We need to focus more on what matters most. The ranking race drives institutions to spend money on various areas other than instruction and intellectual capital, to attract students."

William MessingProfessor, School of MathematicsUniversity of Minnesota(response to OurLeader's Spring Spam: 1/20/08)

...the panel recommends that the Dean consider undertaking an investigation to examine whether Dr. Furcht committed misconduct under Section 10 of the Faculty Tenure Code. This section includes the following ground as a basis for suspension, termination, or other disciplinary action against a faculty member:

"Egregious or repeated misuse of the powers of a professional position to solicit personal benefits or favors."Faculty Tenure Code, Section 10.21(c).12-19-03, Report of Inquiry Panel Regarding Dr. Leo Furcht Conflict of Interest

The clueless, insular way in which Furcht was appointed, and Furcht’s continued mindless arrogance, tells you all you need to know about the culture out of which endemic conflict of interest emerges in universities all over the country.Margaret Soltan, University Diaries

… in the Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that the most charitable description of what’s been going on at the clubby University of Minnesota medical school would be “bizarre.”

A professor [Leo T. Furcht] who is leading the University of Minnesota Medical School's effort to write tougher ethics rules was himself disciplined in 2004 for secretly steering a $501,000 research grant to his own company, according to university investigative reports obtained by the Star Tribune. (XII-121-08)

[Medical School Dean] Powell said Friday she did not inform the rest of the task force members about the sanctions against Furcht. "I did not think it was relevant," she said.

Frank Cerra, the university's senior vice president for health sciences, said Friday he was familiar with the case but couldn't recall details. He said Furcht's experience could help inform the conflict-of-interest committee's work.

A panel of three faculty members investigated and concluded that Furcht "committed a serious violation of the conflict of interest policy," according to a Dec. 19, 2003, report.

Among other things, they found that Furcht "knew or should have known" that he was required to disclose the financial arrangement with Baxter, because he had "a significant financial interest" in MCL and the stem-cell technology.

"In fact, it appears Dr. Furcht stands to personally gain several million dollars from the pending sale of MCL," the report said.

In November 2003, Furcht sold MCL for $9.5 million in stock, sharing 5 percent of the proceeds with the university.

---

“I think we have more administration than we need,”he said. “We need to simplify processes … and ask whether we need all the administration at all the levels.”President Bruininks - Daily, December 4, 2008

"As many of you realize, we live in a knowledge-based economy in which our fundamental mission as a University must be deployed in service of the broader transnational learning process."Provost Thomas Sullivan, November 19, 2008University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks is among the best-paid university presidents in the United States. Salary and benefits of $733,421 landed him spot No. 7 on a list of public university presidents with the highest compensation released this week by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

University spokesman Daniel Wolter said that Bruininks does not comment on his compensation but said he was "quite surprised he ranked as high as he did."(Star Tribune, XI-21-08)_______

"The $70 million needed to complete the changes [to Northrop] will come from a combination of private donors and a University bonding authority."

“The University has decided not to bring this project as, if you will, a line-item like the Bell Museum, to the state Legislature,” Rosenstone said. Daily, October 27, 2008

What's distinctive about the University of Minnesota, compared to many other universities in our society, is that we were chartered initially as a research [sic] and land grant university, if you look at the early history of the University. President Bruininks (10/22/08, Daily)

(That would be NO, Bob...)

"The University is not being paid money owed to it, reports are not generated, and so on; unless there is a clear message that these problems [with EFS] will be resolved in the next two-three months, the situation will reflect badly on the entire central administration." Senate Committee on Finance and Planning (9/23/08)

At the departmental level, I can say that no innovation at UM over the past 20 years has been so expensive in human hours. Staff in our college now do virtually nothing but thrash at EFS, curse, and plan early retirement. (comment on PTII, 10/2908)

“I don’t think anybody should put a dime into the University of Minnesota unless we use the money well, we invest it well and that we’re efficient in how we use resources.” Robert Bruininks (Daily - 9/26/08)

"The leftwing nut professors just never quit. Keep drinking that fair trade coffee. Keep charging the U of M for their blog work..."

Anonymous reader comment: 9/19/08______

"It's one thing if you're bringing in a criminal to speak. But if someone's under investigation, that's fair game," he [Parente] said.

Parente said his approach to McGuire was along the lines of: "We don't really care about the stock options. You know stuff. Tell us what you think."

It would be pretty much negligent on my part not to attempt to engage him [Dr. William McGuire.]"

Stephen Parente, director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute in the Carlson School of Management

---------

"Obviously, the situation that happened to Francois Sainfort and Julie Jacko has not been a positive one for us," Finnegan said. (Strib, 30 August '08)

Have they been charged, tried or convicted of anything either here or in Minnesota? No? Well that does it, then. They must be guilty. Whatever happened to getting your day in court? [finne001, Aug. 30, comment on Strib article above]

I have asked Prof Julie Jacko to serve as lead faculty for the Institute for Health Informatcs (IHI).

I believe IHI needs to move forward and continue its development. Frank Cerra [21 July 2008]

"I think people will think what they want to think," Cerra said, in response to possible criticisms of appointing someone who is under investigation. [Daily: 30 July 2008]

"Our goal – and the goal embraced by the legislature and governor – is to make Minnesota the epicenter of discovery in biomedical science..." OurLeader [Daily, July 9 &16]

"A plan to make the Twin Cities a center for the emerging bio-science industry is faltering. University Enterprise Laboratories has laid of its staff and is trying to renegotiate the mortgage for its building in St. Paul. Its founders had hoped to spark a medical boom in Minnesota." MPR - July 17

"On the functional side, the thing [University Enterprises Laboratories] is just a thriving success," said Bob Elde, dean of the University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences. MPR - July 17

University lab bustles with activity and plans to expand.

The lab would be built next to the current bioscience incubator building.

A new building might be anywhere from 80,000 to 120,000 square feet and would probably be built on an open field next to the existing one, located on an 11-acre lot along the transitway just inside St. Paul city limits.

"I took the lead in getting that whole thing going," he [Bob Elde] said. (Daily: 10/24/06)

The great Yogi Berra once observed, "It's tough making predictions, especially about the future." OurLeader [Daily, July 9 & 16]

Here's another Yogiism to cogitate on, Bob: "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."

A majority of students at the University think the school is trying to be a top-three institution at the expense of its students. [Daily, July 2, 2008]

"To use this time to invest in some sort of cutting-edge conjecture [MoreU Park] about where residential communities might go strikes me as a stretch for a university," [State representative Alice] Hausman said, pointing out current economic and businesses struggles as other reasons to be wary. [Daily, July 2, 2008]

The architects have been given their orders and cannot change the design, Professor Balas said; if the building [Science Teaching and Student Services Buiding] is constructed as designed, it will be a disaster.

Faculty Consultative Committee - June 19, 2008

"I spoke with Mr. Wexner [tOSU Regent] directly about it, and he made it clear that a 19-year-old college sophomore is their [Victoria's Secret] target customer," Van Brimmer said. "It's not like these are Frederick's of Hollywood items."

"University Associate Athletics Director Tom Wistrcill said the school notified the company that the clothing line was not in step with the University's values and focus."

"I think we need to put ourselves in the position of acting according to the highest ethical principles. I believe our people do that now and I believe our people will be doing that in the future as well." President Bruininks (Daily: 6-18-08)

"The Board of Regents and the administration of the University made it clear years ago that it would not tolerate undisclosed, simultaneous full-time employment," Rotenberg said.

"As a matter of fact, Julie and I have not even signed an employee contract yet with Minnesota. ... We have only agreed to unofficially start this semester with full residence starting in May."

Francois Sainfort February Email

But the couple had already begun working full-time for the University of Minnesota at that time, according to documents. Mark Rotenberg, the general counsel for the U of M, said the couple's compensation and contracts at Minnesota began Oct. 1.

"To say that access to the hospital is easy isn't really accurate,'' said Regent Maureen Cisneros. Added Regent David Metzen: "Any way you look at Washington Avenue, it's a mess today.''

PiPress 6/14/08

Regent John Frobenius said the Washington Avenue line would be "a dagger through the heart of the University of Minnesota."

Frank Cerra[AHC VP] heaped praise on the Washington Avenue route. He said the car-free stretch would improve the quality of life on campus...

"Nothing would please me more than to grab a cup of cappuccino, grab a Viennese hot dog and play a game of bocce on the way to work," Cerra told regents.

PiPress 6/12/08

"Bruininks said he didn't know of a university in the United States that was doing something[MoreU Park aka Muscoplat's Folly] as 'courageous and innovative.'"

"Regent David Metzen said he thought the future of the project is the most important decision to face the University in the last 15 years." (Daily - 6/13/08)

The language of the bill stipulates that the Board of Regents must not raise fees or tuition “beyond the amount currently planned for the 2008-2009 academic year.”

Faculty Legislative Liasons, May 19, 2008

Faculty salaries, which aren't included in the $292 million, will be paid with multiple funds, Cerra said, including cost reductions, internal reallocations and support from partner organizations.

The University is competing with schools like Berkeley, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin and Michigan, he [Cerra] said.

"They're going to lose a lot of friends at the Capitol if they jack up that tuition," he [Tom Rukavina] said. "They're pricing themselves out of work if they keep going up 7.5 percent."

Despite Rukavina's intent to keep tuition low, Pfutzenreuter stands by the fact that the Legislature can't decide how the University spends its money.

And in response to Pfutzenreuter:

"Tell him to sue me," Rukavina said. "It's in the bill, tell him to sue me."

University documents show that the proportion of nontenured, part-time faculty teaching at the University increased 10 % [to 45%] between 2003 and 2007.

Bruininks said students feel the impact of the top-three initiative in the sense that it's a "different approach for education."

"In nearly all of our fields, I think students benefit from learning from faculty members who are on the cutting edge of their fields," he said. "It makes the education we provide distinctive and very special."

"For an individual, $1 million is frequently a starting point for salary and start-up money. If you're doing research with a group, it could be $10 million, $15 million, up to $25 million. That's the nature of the marketplace."Frank Cerra

"A million here, a million there, pretty soon you are talking about real money..."

"We will try to piece this together in regard to whether something serious has indeed happened here in regard to so-called double-dipping."

Mark Rotenberg, U of M general counsel

Under the leadership of Provost Sullivan, the University community articulated "an ambitious aspiration for the University—to be one of the top three public research universities in the world [sic] within a decade."

"What separates the top three from the rest ... including the University of Minnesota, is relatively little."

Robert Bruininks

Vice President Brown noted that the President has said that the top three is an aspiration for excellence, not a destination.

Why are the buildings needed?

"This is an effort by the university to grab market share" of federal research dollars, Pfutzenreuter said.

"Is this a time to be talking about getting into the top three? When units cannot maintain their research capacity, how can they get to the top three? There is little to suggest that the University is on an upward trajectory."

Senate Research Committee, October 8, 2007

“There have been a lot of false statements made about tuition increases.He [Sullivan] said the discussion should focus on the marginal average cost to students of a tuition increase, factoring in tuition discounting, scholarships, fellowships, and other financial aid support.”

Faculty Consultative Committee

Thursday, January 24, 2008

In his presentation Friday to the Board of Regents, Bruininks said that 60.5 percent of students graduating in four years get loans to pay for their education and the average debt is about $20,500.

Of 10 schools the university considers its peers, Minnesota has higher resident tuition than Wisconsin, Ohio State, UCLA, California-Berkeley, Florida, Texas and Washington. Only Penn State, Michigan and Illinois have higher price tags.

Wisconsin's resident tuition is currently more than $2,400 cheaper than Minnesota. Iowa residents pay about $3,300 less at the University of Iowa than Minnesotans do at the university.

Minnesotans pay twice as much as the national average to get a public college education, but they're not getting double the results.

Fewer than 40 percent of students at Minnesota's colleges and universities graduate in four years, according to a report released this week by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. In addition, students of color have less than a 50-50 chance of graduating at all.

So much for leadership at the University. As one of the attendees at the hearing on the Central Corridor put it:

“University students will be in no more danger than drunken Vikings fans downtown who have to deal with light rail at grade.A transit mall will be the best decision ever forced on the U of M.”

"I've heard some of the 'doubters' say things like, 'I'd settle for best in the Big Ten," he [Bruininks] said. "Students don't choose the University of Minnesota for (a) mediocre future."

Sullivan said the goal's value for current students is clear. It'll be even more impressive to have the school listed on your résumé, he said.

"People will begin to talk about the University of Minnesota in a world conversation, in China, in India, all of the places that are emerging as great markets," Sullivan said. "The University of Minnesota's name will be in that small group of universities."

Provost Sullivan is a graduate of Drake University and Indiana University. President Bruininks graduated from Western Michigan and the George Peabody College for Teachers.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

For the Record: All U of M Med School Faculty Should Read

Report from the Medical School Faculty Advisory Council to the Strategic Planning Committee

April 15, 2013

Preface: Strategic planning is a triangle whose cornerstones are 1) culture/climate; 2) leadership; and 3) infrastructure/programs. The comments from the FAC members have raised opportunities for improvement in all three domains. The comments are summarized in this report, with an attempt to group them into categories relevant to the strategic planning process.

Included in this report is an appendix which includes all the original, unedited comments made by faculty who are members of the Medical School Faculty Advisory Council to the Dean. They were gathered either via email or at the six individual meetings that were held over a period of three weeks. There was no attempt to cull or edit these concerns, and thus there are some redundancies. However, we believe it is important for the Strategic Planning Committee to see the depth and breadth of concerns raised by faculty members on the FAC, whose members represent every department in the Medical School.

SUMMARY

We have attempted to identify areas of strength and weakness within the current medical school structure with a focus on how we can get better. There are several basic questions we collectively believe need to be addressed. First, how can we restructure/reinvent the Medical School for what we believe are the future realities? Second, what can we do to affect areal and substantive sea change in our climate/environment? A subordinate but integral question that underlies this need to reinvent ourselves is just as important: What strategies can we use to “turn around” the scarcity of resources in the medical school?

Question 1: What are our top strengths or strategic assets of the Medical School for each of our three part mission: Clinical care, research and education?

The faculty identified a number of areas of strength within our medical school. Clinically we are a highly regarded clinical medical school, known to produce diverse and well- trained medical doctors with a focus on primary care. The UMN is among the few schools that graduates significant numbers of Native American physicians, and Duluth accomplishes its mission of producing rural physicians so well that UMN is ranked in the top 5 medical schools nationally. This is strengthened by UMNTC’s urban medical center, where the size and diversity of our patient population enables our clinical training to be very strong.

Collectively, faculty members in the medical school are excellent, with strong records of excellence in research, educational scholarship and teaching. Moreover, since we are a large research university, there are ample opportunities for collaboration within and amongst the research faculty.

These collaborations have been strengthened in a number of areas where there is a concentration on specific diseases and/or translational research. This includes such areas asTranslational Neuroscience, the Lillihei Heart Institute, the Center for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (CMRR), and the Muscular Dystrophy Center. These areas of focus have emerged and depended upon the efforts and vision of faculty members who have recognized the potential such centers can provide in terms of synergy, and have used as much influence as possible to affect faculty hiring to further support the missions of these centers.

Question 2: What do you believe are the top opportunities for the Medical School between 2013-2015?

In general, the comments we received in this domain focus on 3 areas: i) the benefit of modernization – updating our infrastructure; ii) changing the current leadership model school-wide; and iii) focusing on developing the capacity of current faculty members. The collective view is that by focusing on these areas, meaningful and substantive changes will result, improving the climate, leadership, and professional capacity of the faculty in general.

To summarize, the top opportunities can be addressed in four main ways. First, it is clear that the faculty see a need to develop a collective vision. We need to develop a 10 to 15 year plan for budgetary and sustainable excellence. This will help us build “pride of place”, which in turn will help improve public perception of the University of Minnesota Medical School as the place to go for cutting edge, quality, and accessible clinical care, biomedical education, and cutting edge research.

Second, there is a universal concern about leadership in the medical school at all levels, from division chiefs and chairs in clinical departments up to and including the dean’s office. In order to address these concerns, we believe significant change in leadership structure must occur. We need to provide for meaningful leadership review. A corollary to this would be to require that all medical school leadership positions have 5 year term limits. Only by overwhelming faculty vote could terms be increased by another 5 years.

This would ensure that everyone, leadership and the faculty doing day-to-day work, would have a similar vision and mission. In addition, it would help build leadership capacity within the faculty members in general.

Third, in order to facilitate the first two goals, we need to begin building our pipeline of future clinician/scholars starting with medical students, residents and fellows. We have a critical need to rebuild the ranks of tenured/tenure track faculty in the medical school.There is an increasing loss of mid-career faculty members, and this is a devastating loss to us in terms of investment in new faculty members who leave just as they are entering their most productive period.

Finally, to achieve any of these goals, we need a sustained and balanced investment in the career development of all faculty members. We need mentors to help new faculty develop their clinical and research programs. We need mentors to help established faculty maintain research and clinical excellence, and we need mentors to help develop leadership capacity in more senior members of the faculty. Organizations that use a mode of distributed leadership and whose “reporting structures” are shallow are more entrepreneurial and productive, as well as happier.

3. What critical future research, educational, and clinical trends do you believe we need to consider (as threats or opportunities) as we develop the strategic plan?

In general, the faculty felt there is a collective need for all of us to have the “courage of our convictions”. We need to plan our vision well and then BE BOLD AND TAKE RISKS!

This area focused more on potential solutions rather than threats to medical school excellence. In summary: several key areas stood out in our consensus discussion in the areas of leadership, climate, programs/infrastructure, and funding.

The biggest concern in the domain of leadership is that there has been no clear long- term plan for buildings (why do we need it and how will it be maintained), for faculty hiring (how many faculty do we need to accomplish our basic mission), for retention of mid-career faculty (which we are preferentially losing without any “exit interviews” to determine why these faculty members are leaving), and finally no plan for raising funds for an endowment and raising awareness/funding levels for the medical school at the legislature. This lack of a sustained vision for “what we want to be” has resulted in haphazard additions of new building(s) without any way to maintain their infrastructure, faculty hiring without clear reasons for increasing the number of faculty members in a particular area, and insufficient long term planning to sustain the growth that comes with the building of buildings and the hiring of faculty.

In the domain of culture/climate, it has become clear that we need to define the role of research at our medical school. We are a large research university with aging, inadequately funded and maintained infrastructure that makes it increasingly difficult for faculty to maintain cutting edge research programs. Without a means to facilitate, for example, the creation of genetically engineered mice or to perform the advanced genomic and proteomic studies needed as preliminary data for grants, the faculty becomes less and less competitive when applying for external funding. If we are a research university, then this research needs adequately supported (hardware and cost) infrastructure.

This brings us to the reason for declining infrastructure, and this is basically the scarcity of research funds outside the NIH or NSF dollars the faculty collectively bring in through grants. The Medical Schools needs to work hard to increase popular support from the state in general and the legislature specifically. We should have the “home team advantage” as the only state-supported research university in the state. Why don’t we?

We collectively need to decide to be “excellent”; excellent in research, excellent in education, and excellent in clinical care. We need to understand why people do not come to us for medical care. We should be the “go-to” place. This means that we have to invest in “cutting-edge” technologies in both clinical care and research that will set us apart from other medical providers in the state and the region and keep us competitive in the national research arena. This can only be done when we collectively and mutually define ourselves and develop a clear identity.

A third area that the faculty have found particularly problematic is in the area of infrastructure and programs. We have spread our faculty all over the place. How can we better connect our faculty to each other, to staff, to resources, to infrastructure? It is well known that collaborative interactions are increased when people meet each other at lunch or walking down the hallway. We have single departments that are spread out in 8 buildings. This is DEATH to collaborations.

The medical school needs to develop strategies for facilitating our research. There are increasing numbers of hurdles due to the decentralized “business” approach that has been foisted on the faculty in recent years. If our department structure is outmoded, we should redefine it. If it is still functional and important, we need to bring department members together under one roof, and not continue to rip apart faculty members from their departments and spread them all over the place.

One critical area that would enhance our research potential is to develop support structures that will fund early ideas and protect research time to increase the likelihood external funding can be obtained. The University of Minnesota-Mayo partnership grants prove that this works, but the funding is limited to only a few groups. Other states have specifically received funds for this type of thing from their legislatures. We need to put together a plan and create a climate for discovery.

The biggest threat to the Medical School is funding. We face declining patient revenues (which affects research and education), decreased funding for graduate medical and research education, and decreased NIH research funding. We have to clearly define the scope of the medical school of the future and come up with sustainable funding strategies. Currently the suggestion to simply ‘submit more NIH applications’ seems pointless at a time of decreasing NIH dollars.

Potential solutions that the faculty envisioned would be to increase philanthropy, both medical school-wide and in each department. We cannot depend on MMF/University Foundation to do this. We all must participate in this. It is also imperative that we increase state funding for our only state-supported medical school. The state reaps great benefits from the health care professionals we produce, but they do not pay for it. We need to do a better job of telling our state representatives the “return on their investment” they receive, and why it is critical to support the research engine of the medical school to support our educational excellence.

Another way to increase funds for the medical school is to increase our clinical areas of strength. We need to develop new clinical programs that will draw patients based on future health trends, such as geriatric centers, centers for Neurodegenerative Disease and/or autism, and the like. Every year the CDC publishes the 15 most common causes of morbidity and mortality. These may differ a bit for Minnesota, but they are well known. We should be preparing ourselves to become centers of excellence in the major causes of disease in our state and nation.

Question 4: The AHC Review noted a general “malaise” of the Medical School and its faculty in their report. What do you feel are the top three reasons for this “malaise”?

Many of the issues raised echo what has been stated in previous sections and relate specifically to the current climate/culture in the medical school. Climate and culture set a world-class institution apart from a mediocre one. In general, many feel they have minimal voice in decision-making with little discussion, especially if one disagrees. In fact, many faculty members have stated that they have been harassed if they disagree with a decision made by clinical chiefs, department heads, or various assistant and associate deans.The consensus is that climate/culture needs to be an area of focus of the strategic plan. Meaningful leadership reviews with turnover as the rule would help.

Governance: Specifically faculty are frustrated due to 1) lack of their input in decision making, 2) lack of transparency in finances and decision making at the top, and 3) token solicitation of and lack of responsiveness to their input in all matters. Many also feel that there is little room for discussion if they disagree with decisions that are made at departmental or medical school administrative levels.

Leadership: Faculty members are frustrated by the fact that the UMP mission, and particularly the Fairview mission under its current administration, is not concordant with the academic mission of a medical school. In addition, we seem to have “leaders for life”. Many faculty members are quite unhappy at the division or department level, but have no recourse. This could easily be fixed by creating term limits for the dean, all assistant, associate, and senior associate deans, department chairs, division chiefs, etc. which additionally would include 360 reviews of those holding these positions. Moreover, all administrators should undergo the annual review that is expected of the faculty.

Support: Lack of support for the faculty is exemplified by 1) lack of protected time making it hard to maintain scholarly productivity, 2) lack of sufficient bridge funds especially Duluth, 3) an aging faculty with very few middle-level faculty, and 4) hiring largely or only on teaching or clinical scholar tracks. This represents misuse and abuse of these types of faculty, when tenured or tenure-track faculty should be hired.

Summary: It is clear that the faculty love their research, love teaching and training the next generation of clinicians and research scientists, but are more and more hampered in their efforts by aging infrastructure, weak leadership, and lack of a collective vision for the medical school. We are all particularly excited at the potential offered by the Faculty Led Strategic Planning Committee initiative. We hope these collected thoughts are helpful to you as you develop a strategic plan that will become the cornerstone of all we do in the next 20 years.

APPENDICES

Appendix I

All faculty comments are included with no editing.

Question 1: What are our top strengths or strategic assets of the medical School for each of our three part mission: Clinical, research,education?

Top strengths:

One strength that encompasses all three domains is the strong cross-school (Medical School – SPH; Medical School-Engineering etc.) and cross-departmental (centers – Neuroscience, translational neuroscience, muscular dystrophy center, etc.) collaborations that are possible.

Clinical

in Duluth, Center for Rural Mental Health Studies Family Medicine physicians teaching in years 1 and 2 Historical reputation of excellence in the community Talented clinical scholar faculty

Physician-scientists: physicians that bring cutting edge medical developments to their patients They are developing new treatments

Teaching keeps every current

Size and diversity of the patient population makes our clinical training of medical students/residents/fellows very strong

Patient-focused specialty clinics: e.g. Cystic Fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Bone Marrow Transplantation and Transplantation in general…Known to be the place to go for specific diseases

We have an excellent variety of clinical cases, many of whom are receiving innovative treatments unique to this institution (Bone marrow transplantation for epidermolysis bullosa comes to mind).

We need to regain our national prominence in the transplant field

Research

NIH funded research in basic science in Duluth (who teaches medical students in Duluth).

Great faculty

Areas of strength (centers) in the biomedical domain: e.g. Graduate Program in Neuroscience; Muscular Dystrophy Center

Access to centralized core facilities that are world class - CMRR, Biomedical Engineering, etc. We have the potential for strong collaboration with other departments throughout themedical

school and university that allows particularly clinicians to pursue research in spite of having a

limited availability of time.

Education

We turn out great primary care physicians (70 %?) to serve Minnesota.

We have a good physical facility for education and, at least at the department level, a strong commitment to education.

Question 2: What do you believe are the top opportunities for the Medical School between 2013-2015?

Leadership

Provide for meaningful division chief, department chair, assistant, associate, senior associate deans, and medical school dean 360 reviews. Limit all terms to 5 years, with the potentialto be voted back into the position for another 5 years.

Increase the collective faculty voice in medical school decision-making. Stop top-down dictates and develop a sense of collective vision and purpose. (e.g. higher level medical schoolleadership shows distain for faculty; make decisions without understanding what faculty need; focus on a few “superstars” and ignore everyone else; don’t know what the averagefaculty member is doing; goals of the faculty and the higher level medical school administration are not aligned; goals of Fairview are not aligned to the needs of academic medicine,etc. Run the medical school governance like a democracy not like an autocracy.

Increase transparency of how the medical school works.

Climate/Culture

Increase the openness to change. Striving to be better is not “subversive”.

Physical distances are an increasing problem. The closer colleagues are to each other the more they collaborate. The further they are from each other, the less likely they are to collaborate.

Develop a sense of pride in our medical school. ? Create a culture that defines WHO WE ARE and WHAT WE DO.

We have the opportunity to become the top institution for developmental clinical medicine in the upper Midwest.

Program/Infrastructure

Significantly raise funds for the endowment of the medical school – overseen by a faculty committee

Facilitate research in cutting edge areas of medicine and research: nanomedicine, stem cells, RNA-Seq or Chip-Seq genomics technologies, bioinformatics, and tissue procurement.We are falling behind on keeping our facilities up-dated and adequately staffed to ensure rapid turnaround. The lack of faculty access to these technologies makes us less competitive forR01 and other grants.

Focus on doing a few things really well – continue to develop centers of excellence. These could focus on main, current causes of death/disability (causes of death according to theCDC): Psychosocial, Heart, Cancer, Trauma, Neurodegenerative Diseases, and Chronic Respiratory Diseases.

Faculty Development/Research Environment

Recruit and retain the best faculty.

Increase support for current faculty: reinstate hard salary lines for faculty; support shared facilities to enhance our research capacity; etc. We can only recruit great faculty if wehelp make our entire faculty great.

Develop improved pathways for collaborations and facilitate information sharing and collaborative connections between schools (Med. School and Biomedical Engineering, SPH, CLA,etc.) and between departments.

Increase the opportunity for and develop pathways for Public-Private Partnerships for Entrepreneurial activity of faculty.

Facilitate research in cutting edge areas of medicine and research: nanomedicine, stem cells, RNA Seq or Chip-Seq genomics technologies, bioinformatics, and tissue procurement.We are falling behind on keeping our facilities up-dated and adequately staffed to ensure rapid turnaround. The lack of faculty access to these technologies makes us less competitive forR01 and other grants.

Increase and facilitate collaborations between MD and PhDs.

Develop an “ambassador” program: identify faculty who know a lot about the people and the resources of the medical school/university. Assign all new faculty members anambassador to help them get integrated into the medical school research and clinical communities. Ambassadors could also help with recruiting new faculty – get visiting jobapplicants connected with people who will help recruit them here.

We could and should pursue becoming outstanding in medical device development and biomedical engineering.

Education

Re-engineer are medical education so students understand the “checklist manifesto” – quality, safety, use of metrics. Improve the sense of medicine as “teamwork” between MDs andother health care practitioners.

We have the potential to become one of the top medical schools in providing outstanding education.

Public Relations

Increase public awareness of the medical school gems. We need to “toot our own horn” much more so the public understands what we do. (CMRR, etc.) Identify areas of strength andbrag. Make sure it includes all departments.

Improve the relationship of the U of M medical school to the state: both legislatively and with the public. We are not seen as “the place to go” for medical treatment. Spread the word! (e.g.why don’t our doctors refer patients in-house? –time to make appointments is too long; understaffed due to budget concerns, etc.

Clinical

Help facilitate studies on lower cost approaches to treatment.

3. What critical future research, educational, and clinical trends do you believe we need to consider (as threats or opportunities) as wedevelop the strategic plan?

Leadership

Leadership that does not authentically involve faculty in decisions about the medical school that affects them.

Processes for choosing leaders that consult only those currently in those positions, and thus those chosen are all the same.

No process for review of those in leadership positions by those they work for – faculty, staff, etc.

Climate/Culture

Under-appreciation for the diversity of medical environments for training of medical students and residents offered by affiliated hospitals.

Overuse and misuse of the clinical scholar track instead of tenure-track faculty. Reduces faculty voice and increases individuals’ sense of vulnerability to the “whims” of leadership at alllevels.

Program/Infrastructure

Decreasing NIH dollars – how do we change our dependence on this money?

Decreased medical reimbursements – need a plan for how resources are used and distributed. Increase our cutting edge translational efforts – nanomedicine/medical devices/new drugs.Research trend is “large group science”. How can this be facilitated?

There is a major need for IT support and infrastructure that is stable, reliable, and has growth potential. It will be impossible for us to match or exceed success of similar institutions if ourIT is outdated.

Do something about the Tech Transfer Office. They do not help most investigators to protect their intellectual property, or to help towards commercialization. They are too narrow intheir thinking, and should help all faculty who believe they have a patentable idea for treatment

The potential discussion of a merger between Fairview and Sanford has the potential to adversely affect the clinical practice of medicine at the university.

The well-publicized billing scandal involving the leadership at Fairview has also harmed the reputation of the institution and may harm the clinical practice of medicine at the universityas well.

Faculty Development/Research Capacity

Aging faculty – no clear plan for replacement or growth

Decreasing NIH dollars – how do we change our dependence on this money?

Research is dependent to a large and in my opinion too great extent on government grants. This makes research at this institution dependent on the good-will of governmentbureaucrats.

Education

There is overuse and misuse of “teaching scholar track” instead of tenure-track research oriented faculty. This has resulted in significant decreases in educational richness and faculty expertise.

Educational trend is “small group/active learning”. What does this do to our teaching? Loss of numbers of fellowship slots; loss of fellows working at affiliated hospitals

Looming potential decrease in ACGME funding for resident training may have significant impact on all 3 aspects of the strategic plan

Increasing our teaching load is not the way out of our financial problems.

Public Relations

Increase public education and outreach to change decreasing support for the medical school

Clinical

We need to invigorate the clinical practice: increase our patient population, expand the clinical care in the area of primary care/family medicine

We need to focus on developing areas of expertise that are different than those available in the community.

Aging of the population – are we planning ahead? Geriatrics Center

More rural primary care physicians are needed – how can we affect doctor distribution in MN

Decreased medical reimbursements – need a plan for how resources are used and distributed.

We need to build our clinical research infrastructure. Set up clinics to do research to include development of patient data bases and a management system and set up patient tissue repositories

Facilitate cooperation between the U of M Hospital and all the affiliated hospitals to better access patients for clinical research.

Question 4: The AHC Review noted a general “malaise” of the Medical School and its faculty in their report. What do you feel are the topthree reasons for this “malaise”?

1. Incongruent objectives of entities controlling clinical practice and the academic clinicians actually doing patient care (difficult to be teach or be productive in research whenclinical practice does not run efficiently and is difficult to change, or when costs for patient-oriented research are prohibitive)

4. Lack of faculty voice in decision making. There is a token addition of faculty input to decision-making.

5. Top-down decisions without having developed a collective vision and purpose with the faculty

6. When problems arise, there is minimal assistance in addressing the issue(s) faced by the faculty member

7. Misuse and overuse of the clinical scholar track. Those in the track are not given any protected time for research yet scholarly product is expected.

8. Trying to maintain productivity in the face of fewer and fewer resources

9. One comment was as follows: leadership takes credit for anything good that happens and blames faculty for anything bad that happens”

10. Very poor leadership at UMP, the hospital and the medical school.

11. There are also no means for faculty to have input into replacing these people in leadership positions despite of our providing most of their financial support. For example, if a faculty member is nominated to run for a spot on the UMP board they first must pass through a nominating committee. The nominating committees only chose people who will not “rock the boat.” The result is that poor leaders are never eliminated. The leadership issue is so important that it dwarfs any other concern.